Fake police extorting teenagers for money at Punggol?

A video of what seems like a few young adults “asking” for donations from secondary school kids at Punggol MRT Station has been circulating on Facebook.

From the video, it seems that one of the teenagers was trying to escape the situation, but was stopped by one of the young adults. Unfortunately, the video was taken from quite a distance and their conversation can’t be heard.

According to Sam, the user who originally uploaded the video, the older boys in the video even claimed that they are police officers and were asking for donation from younger kids in the neighbourhood. He says,

“Please share this around to help aware your friends or child. In this video at punggol interchange, you can see 1 of the student want to walk away from this people but 1 of them pull him back. This people will say that they are policemen and will force you to “donate” $10 if not you can’t leave. It happen to 1 of my friends recently like this student.”

The video has since been shared more than 1,882 times overnight.

With such reach, I’m not surprised the video didn’t sit well with some other people. And when I say some others, I refer to the older boys in the video which led to a long exchange of text between the boys and Sam.

Here’s a quick summary.

Older boys (Cavin and Aaron) claim they are from a company – Velocity Advertising and Sales.

They are waiting for their polytechnic admission.

They are doing this for charity and are just volunteers.

They hope that the video can be taken down.

Because according to them, what they are doing is actually legal and they can sue Sam for uploading this video and for what he is saying.

Cavin then questions Sam about his school and class, also gives Sam his number so they can “talk this out”.

Sam refuses to give in and both Aaron and Cavin then ask Sam to “watch what he says.”

Cavin gives up trying to convince Sam and instead tells him that the law will deal with him.

Sam insists that he is not trying to slander anyone, but merely sharing this to inform other friends so they can avoid getting caught in such incidents.

Amongst the wall of text which includes some other Facebook users sharing their own experiences along with their friends’. And of course, there were comments going, “WHY DON’T YOU JUST CALL THE POLICE?”

And also these;

We should pay more attention to CrimeWatch.

A quick search on the Internet about this “advertising and sales company” renders almost no results other than an expired ad previously posted on an recruitment site, and this:

No website nor Facebook page associated with the company can be found.

— Editor’s Note —

The original video has since been taken down but we have uploaded a copy of it.

Update 1: The police has posted on Facebook that they’re looking into the matter.

Update 2: The police has arrested two people in relation to this case.

Well someone seems trashy and guilty, already start threatening people via comments. What a big, scary keyboard hooligan! Smith, good job letting the public know about such human trash. Continue to expose them. If these scum got nothing to hide, why get so livid about a video that got posted? Go earn a decent living instead of leeching off secondary kids. Scum. Or is that all your parents raised you to be capable of?

First of all, if a person does not want to donate, respect his decision and leave, not pull him back and ask for the donation. As you can see from the video, the man at the back was laughing when his friend pulled the boy back. This clearly shows that they are not serious about the charity that they are doing which leads to my conclusion that it is fake. Secondly, if a person wants to donate, let him do it with any amount he is willing to give, not force him and make him donate a minimum of 10 dollars. Lastly, if the group of you did not do anything wrong, why bother asking him to remove the post? You must be guilty of soemthing that’s why you asked him to remove it and if you are going to say that he accused you guys then leave him, afterall it is his mouth and it is his freedom. Also, please state the cause and why they are donating.

I didn’t know the license allows them to extort money. Are you one of those “volunteers” getting kids to $10 else you’d block their way ? The post is subjective but in no way incriminative, why’re you so eager to have it down ?

I always see such “donation” in various locations and one of them is Bukit Batok MRT station and campus’ bus stop. This group of young adults always move in a group. Sometimes, they will usually split into 2 groups and take turns to con people.

From what I understand, they also corner those primary and secondary student and then force them to donate. Or else, they will not let them go. It can also be called as extortion.

In addition, I also heard that out of $10, more than 50% is shared among the young adult and the company. They only donate $2 to the charity, or maybe not even a single cents. Their vouchers look really fanciful but it is not usable at all.

Whenever I saw someone donate, I will tell them that these are scammers and ask them to watch out in the future. From what I have seen, they hide the fake document or walk away when they see policemen.

What I can advise is that they will usually not approach you when you give them a stern face. If they really did, you can just ask them loudly in public whether they can proof that it goes charity and their vouchers are usable.

Seems like Velocity has changed their name. On ACRA’s search results they are now known as Transcend Marketing Group. Wonder if this incident had anything to do with it.

Anyway, someone VERY close to me was introduced to this “job” by one of his unsavoury friends. That whole group had a good number of problem youth and their boss even brought them for late night drinks at various pubs despite knowing well that many of them were underaged for that.

Most shocking thing was to find out their boss was the son of an old friend who was a prominent pioneer in the anti-substance abuse circle in Singapore – to think he would bring the youths for activities that are known to be gateways to drug abuse and gang involvement.